There is no shortage of sympathizing authenticity available to help moms absorb the impact of life in the trenches. Strangers, friends, blogs, and books freely offer their candid encouragements. I remember one occasion years ago when I was buying a package of preschooler underpants. The store clerk smiled and said, “When you start their toilet training you’re going to feel like there’s urine everywhere. But don’t worry, you’re not alone.” The woman behind me in line echoed her. “Ain’t that the truth!” There’s no doubt about the fact that we receive a special kind of encouragement knowing we’re not alone.

Believers in Christ are surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” who walk by fait…

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Few have written with such passion and economy of expression. Rarely does one turn such manifest angst to articulation and channel such blood-earnestness into precise words.

Blaise Pascal burned with the kind of intensity and aggression uncharacteristic of those who have long, peaceful lives. He was a fierce flame with a short wick.

It was June 19, 1623 — 390 years ago today — that Pascal was born in Clermont, France, to a mother who would die when he was only a toddler. He himself would live a sickly and painful life and wouldn’t even see his fortieth birthday — though he left an indelible impression. While the world had him for less than four decades, the church only had him for eight ye…

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This is a gentle pushback on a popular slogan.

There is truth in saying, “love is a choice” or “love is a decision.” It is true that if you don’t feel like doing good to your neighbor love will incline you to “choose” to do it anyway. If you feel like getting a divorce, love will incline you to “choose” to stay married and work it out.

If you shrink back from the pain of nails being driven through your hands, love will incline you to say, “Not my will but yours be done.” That’s the truth I hear in the statements: “Love is a choice,” or “Love is a decision.”

But I don’t prefer to use these statements. Too many people hear three tendencies in them that those who use the statements may not i…

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Max McLean, the lead actor and director of the theatrical adaptation of The Screwtape Letters, has performed the role of Screwtape hundreds of times since the play debuted in 2010. This means that beyond reading C.S. Lewis, McLean has absorbed his thought.

We recently had the chance to ask him about any enduring lessons he’s learned from so much attention to Lewis’s work. He explains in this three-minute video:

Learn more about our upcoming conference, “The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, & Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis,” and download our ebook from John Piper on C.S. Lewis, Alive to Wonder: Celebrating the Influence of C.S. Lewis.

Whether you are in your twenties or sixties, you probably have some long-standing heart-responses you don’t like. These are like reflexes. You don’t choose them. They spring up unintentionally from your heart, usually in response to the people around you.

It may be anger, anxiety, envy, resentment, self-pity, disgust, frustration, discouragement, lust, irritability, impatience, hard-heartedness, brusqueness, unkindness, withdrawnness.

When any one of these attitudes springs up unbidden, you hate it. You have fought it for years with gospel-faithfulness, trusting in the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to cover it and conquer it.

Still it returns. You weep over it, and ask …

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Twenty percent of all the books sold last year were electronic, says the latest report from Bookstats. This simply means that ebooks are still on the rise. More and more users like to carry their libraries in their hands. And this matters for the mission of Desiring God.

Though it won’t replace good old-fashioned books, the upward trend of ebooks has created a new platform for us to spread our message — that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Over the past year we’ve created 14 new titles exclusively released as ebooks, all free, available in three different file formats to fit whichever mobile device you use. They have included specially curated content from Jo…

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The Book of Acts profiles a people living bold.

The theme of boldness takes center-stage in Acts 4 with the story of Peter’s and John’s trial before the Sanhedrin. We learn that what astonishes the Jewish leaders pertains mainly to the apostles’ content, not their emotions. The bewildering reality at work in Peter’s and John’s testimony is what they say about Jesus.

These two fishermen had become messengers of God’s salvation, heralds for a new age in human history. They were now spokesmen of the risen and reigning Lord over all. So yes, they spoke with passion. But the point Luke drives home is not their style, but their substance. Not their homiletics, but their hermeneutics. It was all …

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All around the world, dads are special today. Father’s Day is the third Sunday of June in the United States and more than 80 nations. It is fitting that we not only annually honor moms on Mother’s Day, but our fathers as well.

God’s good design is for both moms and dads, and for their appreciation and honor, whether old covenant (Exodus 20:12) or new (Ephesians 6:2). It takes man and woman, father and mother, to image God to a child. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Beyond Precise Description

Having just one or the other isn’t God’s ideal, though we greatly revere those who give such valiant effort to l…

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Much has happened in the past two weeks. The Ask Pastor John podcast recently reached the 1 millionth play milestone. Pastor John and his family moved temporarily from the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee (see episodes 111 and 112 for the details). And over the past two weeks, we have released 10 new episodes of the podcast. What follows are transcribed excerpts from these new episodes (click the hyperlinked titles to listen).

On Pastors Who Use Churches as Studios (Episode 103):

It seems to me there’s a profound inauthenticity about preaching past your people in front of you. And that inauthenticity may get a crowd in the short run, but will not be blessed by God in the w…

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Is it possible for a woman to exercise leadership in the workplace while still retaining her femininity?

In this video, Mary Kassian talks about a misconception among some Christians that holds that women shouldn’t do anything or have any interests outside the home. But the Bible doesn't teach that. The portrait of complementarity put forth in the Scriptures includes women who fruitfully participate in the civic realm.

Recent videos from Mary Kassian:

• How Are Women Fulfilled?